


Standing for Family

by Chuksha



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, past James/Lily - Freeform, ref to domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 19:58:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13395150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chuksha/pseuds/Chuksha
Summary: There was only so much Severus was willing to take. He took her grief and her rage; he took the hexes and the curses. He was not about to make his mother's mistakes, so he took a stand. (Severitus)





	Standing for Family

“And they were all so afraid that I would be the one who would be incapable of controlling my temper around James Potter’s son.”

“I-Sev,” her eyes were imploring, but he found he couldn’t meet them and not see her son, tear-stained and terrified, crashing through the door of his office moments earlier. “I just, I didn’t mean it, I just, he’s been nagging all day and I just, I snapped.”

He humphed in response and held the toddler close, stroking his hair absently as Harry sobbed. The poor boy had wet himself she’d screamed so harshly at him. _And that better have been all she did_. Harry whimpered when the warmth of his step-father’s magic wrapped around him, cleaning and drying out his clothes without a word. The boy clung tighter, and Severus’ gut clenched, it was one thing for Lily to treat him like that but for her to turn on the child. He couldn't allow that. Not even James Potter's son deserved that.

“I will see him settled before we discuss this.” Lily hadn’t gone from contrite to defensive yet so just nodded at him. He left her there as he carried the boy back into his study and closed the door.

Severus had claimed this room for what Lily had called a ‘man-cave’ almost as soon as she had moved in with her son. With James dead (and half the order along with him) they had had no one to turn to, and Albus has strong-armed Severus into opening his home to his once-friend.

Of course; tight quarters, grief and past familiarity had bloomed into what he (despite himself) had mistaken for something like love. It had only been after she had agreed to marry him that Severus had realised that it wasn’t the mother he was romantically attached to but that he’d developed a real paternal affection for the son.

Never a man to back down from his word he’d gone through with the wedding and insisted she kept Potter’s name for her son’s sake when it had become clear he had no chance of legally adopting the boy. He’d returned from the honeymoon and promptly created a second master bedroom from a nook on the corridor that he’d expanded with a few well-chosen charms. It had never been a happy marriage, and he’d never bring any more children into it, but he persevered, for the boy’s sake.

“Ssh,” Severus sat in the leather armchair and let the boy curl up in his lap as he began to calm himself from outright crying to low sniffles. Having forgotten to pick them up from the desk on his way past Severus summoned the box off tissues he kept there (because a four-year-old needed tissues and he saw a lot of the boy in here), and when it landed on the arm of the chair, he pulled one and tended the boy gently. If there was one thing, being a Potions master had trained him for, he was grateful for the strong stomach and precise touch he’d perfected during his apprenticeship.

-

“The boy wet himself, Lily, you literally frightened him so badly he lost his faculties.” Lily was glaring at him from her perch on the sofa. Severus stared into the fire and sighed.

“It’s not my fault he was nagging!” Her tone made him want to hex her and only iron-clad self-control and all these years of promising himself he wouldn't be like his father stopped him.

 “He is four years old, of course, he was nagging, that is what they do at that age.” He snapped instead, only just reeling himself in from provoking her further with something more cutting.

“Yes, _thank you_.” He told himself not to argue or to match her tone, that arguing only ever made her angry. He told himself it was October, that she would be feeling the grief of the anniversary, not to take it personally. He'd been telling himself the same things since the honeymoon.

“What, precisely, did you do?” He kept his voice carefully low, tight and level.

She stared up at him wide-eyed and almost-believably innocent. Severus fought the urge to roll his eyes back at her. Those doe eyes had long since stopped working on him.

“Why do you even care? _You’re not his father_!” Severus made himself count to ten, and then twenty, as he glared down at a piece of log that refused to burn. By the time he’d turned back to her, she was on her feet and well within striking distance. His heart skipped a beat. She was dangerous, and they both knew it. He still had the hex mark from last time he’d pushed her too far.

“There is a child in my home, under my protection, who looks to me for sanctuary... and you think me so cold that I do not care?” He wasn’t taunting; he was genuinely asking, she’d broken his spirit too long ago for him to truly wish to risk properly vexing. It still hurt that she, of all people, refused to look past the mask of the former spy.

His wife and he was actually afraid of her, what she might do, that had been a bitter potion to swallow. He'd faced the Dark Lord without breaking a sweat, and his own wife made him shiver. It was as equally galling as it was laughable; the Big Bad Death Eater afraid of the sweet little housewife.

Severus had only recently allowed himself to accept that the only reason he was still here was for Harry. The poor kid didn’t deserve to lose another father so soon after the first. It hadn’t been the first time he’d cursed the day he’d taken the dark mark, but it had been one of the most violent depressive spirals he’d had to claw his way out of. The day he had doomed Harry to being trapped with at least one potentially violent parent in his misguided attempt to save Lucius.

He didn’t expect an answer from Lily as he swept out of the room past her. He was aware of every step; half expecting a trip jinx, a hex in the back, screaming or even some kind of kick or slap... the tension didn’t leave his shoulders until he had a bundle of sleeping toddler in his arms and he’d crossed the perimeter of Malfoy Manor.

-

“Are you at least uninjured this time, Severus?” Lucius might have seemed cold, but he had always been a good friend to the Potions Master. Severus nodded without comment as Narcissa handed him a glass of scotch they all knew he wouldn’t drink while he had Harry in his care. He never did.

“Severus-“ he sighed at his friend's attempts to make him talk and set the glass down a touch too harshly.

“Don’t. Lucius. Just don’t.” The blond clamped his mouth shut and nodded. He knew better than to argue with Severus on nights like tonight.

“In your own time then,” Severus loved Narcissa like a sister, she was a typical society wife; capable of handling even the most awkward situations with grace and tact and he loved her for it. She could put a raging hippogriff at ease with a glance and a soft word. Lucius insisted it was good breeding and a kind heart, out of respect for his friend, he always refrained from outright pointing out that Lily had neither. Severus leaned back in the wingback armchair and sighed tiredly.

“You know Lucius,” he said eventually, voice heavy with the weight of too many cares, “it has become apparent to me, over the course of the last weeks... I have spent so long trying not to become my father that I failed to recognise when I became my mother.” Lucius didn’t look surprised. On the contrary, he seemed almost triumphant and smug for a second before the momentary lapses of decorum were replaced with polite concern.

“I am sure, Severus, that I don’t know why you mean?”

“Don’t play the fool with me, Lucius, I know you better.” Severus glared at his friend. “I used to hate my mother, you will remember; deemed her weak, pathetic...” he let out a snort of derision at his own youthful arrogance and stupidity, “and here I sit. Trapped in a cage of my own making...” he rubbed at his forehead tiredly, fingers stroking over the premature lines that had formed on his brow.

“Stay here,” Severus shook his head at the proposal. He couldn’t do that; Lily might actually kill him if he didn’t return with Harry until morning. “Severus,” Lucius and Narcissa exchanged glances, and he suddenly felt drained as he wondered what they were plotting now, “when I offer you room and board in my home, I do not do so, with any time limit attached.” It took him longer than he was comfortable admitting to understand what Lucius was saying. It was so tempting. But he couldn’t. He had Harry. “Bring the boy with you. You know his mother will not be able to reach him here.” But Severus couldn’t do that either; he couldn’t kidnap his stepson and keep him in an (admittedly well furnished, large and loving) prison. At least if they were under the same roof, Severus could protect Harry from the worst of his mother’s temper without having to hide from the Department for Magical Families

“From what I gather,” Severus started to say slowly, “she actually raised her hand to him this time.” It felt like the weight of the world was bearing down on his shoulders. “And having seen some of my past injuries...” Severus really wanted to take that drink, but he refrained, “he was naturally terrified.” Lucius set his drink down so hard an elf arrived thinking it was a call for a servant. Lucius shooed the thing away impatiently and gave it a kick for getting in his way when it nearly tripped him by being in the path of his sudden urge to pace.

“A Potter child... brought to harm...” he was raging, Severus didn’t care that Harry was a Potter, that he hailed from a pureblood line that stretched back into history beyond even Christendom itself, he cared that his son had been frightened of his own mother. It steeled a nerve he hadn’t been aware he had. _For what he was about to do, may the Lord have mercy on his soul._

“As you have been insisting this past year, Lucius, I believe now is the time to act.”

-

The next hours passed him by in a blur; he’d returned to his home and found it empty. Lily had gone to stay with her parents for the night. That had been a reprieve he wasn’t expecting but never one to pass up a golden opportunity Severus promptly changed the wards, transfigured the locks and packed for himself and Harry to be away indefinitely. This might be his house but to protect his son he would give it up in a heartbeat. When Severus returned to Malfoy Manor, Lucius was waiting with the owl ready to go.

“Last chance Severus,” Lucius asked quietly as the suitcases were taken by an elf. Severus looked the man in the eye and nodded once.

“Release the bird, before I change my mind.” Lucius gripped him in a brotherly embrace the minute the owl took off. It felt like the owl carried the weight of the world away for a moment before the burden of what he had just done settled on his shoulders.

“I will not lose him, Lucius.” He murmured. “Not for anything. I will run if I must.” Even a life on the run was better than what had been waiting for them. In some ways Severus would regret making the decision so quickly, in others, he would always be grateful he made it that night while Harry still had some innocence left worth protecting.

-

 

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to; Zara (you know who you are) for encouraging me to post this and helping with title/summary stumbling blocks, Also to Emily, who spent a good amount of time helping me thrash out a potential plot to carry this fic on.
> 
> This is currently a one-shot that I may return to one day, maybe... after I finish the other two epics I have ongoing...


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